The Final Twist by Jeffery Deaver (free ebooks romance novels txt) 📕

day either. To kill the family the team needed to get inside. The two pros in the business, Russell and Ty, believed the attack would be a dynamic entry, two or three ops kicking in the door and charging through the house. They would likely be supported by a sniper.

Why did the kill order include the entire family? he wondered.

Maybe just being meticulous. Maybe Devereux was worried that Prescott had explained what he’d found to his wife, and the children might have overheard.

Maybe to send a message to the rest of the thousands of employees at BayPoint Enviro-Sure Solutions and Banyan Tree, reminding them of where their loyalty should be.

5:56.

He called his brother and asked in a soft voice, “Zero here. Anything in the back?”

“Thought I saw a hostile. Just a jogger. No threat.”

“’K.” They disconnected.

Would the ops come in an SUV, a couple of jeeps? He doubted a helicopter but supposed with Devereux’s money that wasn’t impossible.

Shaw was armed with both his Glock and his Colt Python, and, in the backseat, his Enfield .303—the World War One British infantry rifle, old and battered but perfectly accurate. He really hoped he didn’t need to fire any weapons; he’d already been present at a fair number of incidents here. At some point the cops would have to get involved and, even if the firefight was justified, he wouldn’t want that hassle.

Besides, he needed a shooter alive. He wanted witnesses to testify against Devereux. Sam Prescott had proof that would bring down BayPoint Enviro-Sure Solutions and its executives, but the parent company—and Devereux himself—would be insulated from liability. A hired killer, even working for one of Devereux’s subsidiaries, might have evidence leading directly to the arrogant CEO himself.

A motor scooter went by, a young Asian man on the saddle. It vanished around the corner at the end of the block. An SUV, driven by a middle-aged woman, cruised up the hill, and likewise disappeared. A woman bicyclist, in a bold, floral athletic outfit, pedaled past and started up the steep hill, her feet moving rapidly, the gears in low.

At 7:10 his phone hummed.

Shaw answered and told his brother, “They’re late.” He said he’d seen a few vehicles. Nobody suspicious and none of the drivers—or the cyclist—had been interested in the Prescott house. “Sniper action? There’s nothing in the front.”

“No one presenting in the back, and any sniper and his spotter’d need time to set up, adjust for wind, humidity. We would’ve seen them by now.”

“Are they just in good camo?”

“No. Got eyes on every usable nest. Couple of them’re perfect . . . Hmm. They would’ve known the Prescotts landed an hour and a half ago.”

Shaw said, “With Hogan disappearing, they’re being cautious maybe.”

“Think they called it off?”

“Ten percent chance of that. Tops.”

“Agree.”

They disconnected.

7:15.

Shaw noted the light from the Prescotts’ living room change as a commercial came on the TV.

He was checking his phone for the time—it was 7:19—when the gut-punching explosion rocked the SUV. He looked up at the Prescott house to see flame boiling from each shattered window. Shaw climbed from the vehicle and ran toward the structure. He could get no closer than forty or fifty feet. Already the entire home was ablaze.

The device—whatever it was—had been perfectly designed. Not a soul could have gotten out of a trap like that alive.

74

They drove back in silence to the safe house, Colter Shaw and his brother.

Both men were stung by their failure.

“Goddamn it.” Shaw’s voice was bitter.

What a loss . . .

They had expected an assault. They had expected a C-4 or another nitrate-based bomb.

They weren’t prepared for a very different improvised explosive device—and a particularly clever one. Devereux’s new kill team had run a gas line disguised as a water pipe into the house and starting about 7:00 or so the timed system had begun filling the place with natural gas—but it was the original substance, before the foul rotten egg smell odorant, to warn of leaks, was added. No one could have detected it.

After a half hour, some type of timed igniter clicked to life. The resulting explosion had destroyed the house.

If no one had known the family was targeted for death, the incident would have been reported as an accident. The intense heat and flames would melt most of the parts of the device. Investigators would assume the real public utility pipe—now destroyed too—had cracked or suffered from a leak. The igniter would be vaporized as well.

Shaw and his brother, though, explained to the fire marshal that the explosion was meant to murder a whistleblower and his family.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell anybody?” the marshal had demanded.

Because it never occurred to them that Devereux’s men would try something like this.

And also because Shaw and Russell had inherited enough of their father’s paranoia to not trust your average civic official—at least not in the case of BlackBridge.

They now arrived at the safe house and Russell parked. He had a good touch behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. All the children did. Homeschooling didn’t provide the chance for official driver’s ed classes, but Ashton had taught Russell, Colter and Dorion the skills needed to pilot vehicles from cycles to sedans to trucks from age twelve or so. It was curious that Russell drove so conservatively. In his work for the group, he was the blunter of the two brothers; Shaw, whose Yamaha occasionally went airborne vertical and returned to earth horizontal, had an approach to his own profession that was far more cerebral.

The brothers walked to the pale blue safe house on Alvarez and into the entry hall, where the FBI’s Denver contingent was standing. Shaw nodded and introduced himself. Russell did too.

Shaw then walked into the living room and up to the four people sitting stiffly on the couch. He said to the four members of the Sam Prescott family, “We were wrong. There weren’t any shooters. It was a firebomb. Your house is gone, your car, everything. I’m sorry.”